Habit 2 is based on principles of personal leadership, which means that leadership is a first creation. Leadership is not management. Management is the second creation… leadership has to come first.
Management is a bottom line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things? Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish? In the words of both Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
As individuals, groups, and businesses, we are often so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don’t even realize we’re in the wrong jungle. And the rapidly changing environment in which we live makes effective leadership more critical than it has ever been – in every aspect of independent and interdependent life.
We are more in need of a vision or destination and a compass (a set of principles or directions) and less in need of a roadmap. We often don’t know what the terrain ahead will be like or what we will need to go through it; much will depend on our judgment at the time. But an inner compass will always give us direction
Effectiveness – often even survival – does not depend solely on how much effort we expand, but on whether or not the effort we expand is in the right jungle. And the metamorphosis taking place in most every industry and profession demands leadership first and management second.
Efficient management without effective leadership is, as one individual has phrased it, “like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic.” No management success can compensate for failure in leadership. But leadership is hard because we’re often caught in a management paradigm.
Source: Covey, Stephen R. (1989, 2004). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press, pp. 101, 102.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind
